LONDON (AP) – Up to 60 countries, including some of the world’s poorest, could be stopped in the first vaccines against their coronavirus vaccines, as almost all deliveries through the global program to help them are blocked until the end of June.
COVAX, the global initiative to provide vaccines to countries that do not have the influence to negotiate for scarce supplies, has last week sent more than 25,000 doses to low-income countries just twice in a given day. Deliveries have stalled virtually since Monday.
Over the past two weeks, according to data collected daily by UNICEF, less than 2 million doses of COVAX were cleaned to ship them to 92 countries in the developing world, the same amount injected in Britain alone.
On Friday, the head of the World Health Organization criticized the “shocking imbalance” in global vaccination against COVID-19. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus said that while one in four people in rich countries had received a vaccine, only one in 500 people in the poorest countries had received a dose.
The shortage of vaccines comes mainly from the decision of India stop exporting vaccines from the factory of the Serum Institute, which produces the overwhelming majority of AstraZeneca doses that COVAX had to supply about a third of the world’s population while the coronavirus is increasing to all the world.
COVAX will only send WHO-authorized vaccines and countries are becoming increasingly impatient. Supplies are declining in some of the first countries to receive shipments of COVAX, and the planned delivery of second doses in the currently recommended 12-week window is in doubt. In a statement, the vaccination alliance known as GAVI told The Associated Press that 60 countries are affected by the delays.
At the vaccination tents set up at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, many of those who arrived at the first beatings felt uncomfortable about when the second one would arrive.
“My fear if I don’t have the second dose, my immune system will be weak and therefore I could die,” said Oscar Odinga, an official.
WHO internal documents obtained by the PA show uncertainty about deliveries “which causes some countries to lose faith in COVAX (effort)”. This makes the WHO consider accelerating its approval of vaccines from China and Russia, which have not been authorized by any regulator in Europe or North America.
WHO documents show that the UN agency faces questions from COVAX participants about allocations, in addition to “uncertainty about whether all those who were vaccinated in round 1 are guaranteed a second dose “.
The WHO has refused to respond specifically to questions raised in domestic materials, but has previously said countries are “eager” to receive vaccines as soon as possible and has insisted it has not heard any complaints about the process. .
Concern about the link between AstraZeneca shooting and rare blood clots it has also “created nervousness around its safety and effectiveness,” the WHO noted. Among its proposed solutions is the decision to “accelerate the review of additional products” from China and Russia.
The WHO said last month that it would be possible to give the green light to Chinese vaccines in late April.
Some experts have pointed out that Sinopharm and Sinovac, two vaccines made in China, have no published data and there are reports of people needing a third dose to protect themselves.
“If we are missing something because we have not thoroughly assessed the risks of serious adverse events from these vaccines, this would undermine confidence in all the good products we are using that we know are safe,” said Dora Curry, director of equity and health rights at CARE International.
Other experts were concerned that the delays could erode faith in governments that were especially efficient in their vaccination programs. and they had second doses soon.
“In the absence of high vaccination coverage worldwide, we run the risk of dragging the pandemic for several more years,” said Lavanya Vasudevan, an adjunct professor at Duke University’s World Health Institute. “Every day the virus is circulating is an opportunity for it to mutate into a more deadly variant.”
Earlier this month, the WHO called on rich countries to urgently share 10 million doses to achieve the UN goal of initiating COVID-19 vaccinations in all countries during the first 100 days of the year. To date, countries have committed hundreds of millions of dollars to COVAX. But there is simply no dose to buy and no country has agreed to immediately share what it has.
Bilateral dose donations tend to go in political line, rather than in countries with more infections, and are not very sufficient to offset the goals that COVAX has set itself. Think global health, a data site managed by the Foreign Relations Council, identified 19 countries that have given a total of 27.5 million doses to 102 countries as of Thursday.
“You can strongly argue that it is better to make donations in crisis and control the pandemic than to vaccinate low-risk groups at home,” said Thomas Bollyky, director of the World Health Council’s World Health Program. Bollyky said COVAX was a big disappointment and the only option available to most of the world.
According to the International Rescue Committee, last month COVID-19 cases and deaths increased in many countries affected by the crisis: 322% in Kenya, 379% in Yemen and 529% in northeastern Syria .
On Thursday, the agencies behind COVAX, the WHO, the GAVI vaccine alliance and CEPI, a coalition for preparing for the epidemic, celebrated the delivery of 38 million life-saving vaccines to more than 100 countries.
Brook Baker, a vaccine expert at Northeastern University, said the message of praise was out of place.
“Holding sufficient doses for just 19 million people, or 0.25% of the world’s population, is deaf,” he said, adding that it was time for the WHO and partners to be more honest with countries.
“WHO and GAVI have often repeated overpromising and little supply. Why should we believe that they will suddenly be able to increase production and deliveries in a couple of months?” He said.
On Thursday, outside the vaccination tents in Nairobi, Dr Duncan Nyukuri, an infectious disease doctor, tried to reassure people receiving the first dose.
“If you get the first dose and you don’t get the second dose, that doesn’t mean your body is weaker or you have a higher risk of getting any infection,” he said. “What it means is that your body will have developed some immunity against coronavirus infection. But this immunity is not as good as someone who has received both doses.
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Hinnant reported from Paris. Khaled Kazziha, in Nairobi, Kenya, contributed.
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